Gathering of Wits

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Last night Museum of Modern Art film curator Raj Roy hosted director Mike Nichols and four legendary collaborators -- Meryl Streep, Elaine May, Nora Ephron and Buck Henry -- in a moderately dazzling, often funny, at times chaotic group discussion about Nichols' films, which are screening at MOMA now through May 1st. It mainly felt like a spirited dinner-table thing between Uncle Mike and the in-laws. A nice, raggedy, catch-as-catch-can vibe.

(l. to r.) Streep, May, Nichols, Ephron, Henry -- Saturday, 4.18.09, 9:25 pm

Nichols, Roy, Streep (star of Nichols' Silkwood, Postcards From The Edge, and costar of Angels in America), May (Nichols' comedy partner from the early '60s), Ephron (screenwriter of Silkwood, Heartburn) and Henry (screenwriter of The Graduate, Catch 22, Day of the Dolphin) were onstage for roughly 75 minutes. Here's my edited mp3.

The beginning was a bit lurching and unfocused, I felt, and quite enjoyable for that. Roy asked a question that went on and on until he was stopped by Ephron when she said she was very much looking forward to hearing the question (or words to that effect).

Then Roy went in the other direction (i.e., under-explained) when he turned to May and said "perhaps you could talk to us about writing comedy, with Mike or with anybody?" May gulped, looked down, and said, "Uhm...if you could be a teeny bit more specific?" Huge laugh, mild embarassment. So Roy tried to elaborate but the words he was looking for weren't quite materializing. And so Streep, feeling the angst and the struggle, suddenly chimed in and said, "Oh, I know what you're trying to say!" And then she went off in her own direction.

Nichols debunked the auteur theory at one point, asserting that all films are collaborative efforts with dozens if not hundreds of people contributing in this and that way.

Streep recalled how Out of Africa director Sidney Pollack told her toward the end of shooting that he was sick of the physical chore of it all and that he couldn't wait to "get back to Los Angeles and the editing room so I can make this movie." Nichols, on the other hand, really loves the filmmaking process because of give-and-take familial atmosphere, and that he always gets a little gloomy when a film is about to finish.

Movies always take you back to the world in which they were made, Nichols said, but life has a way of overtaking them. "We ran Catch 22 just to check the print and it was almost like a documentary," he said. Joseph Heller's book was fairly nervy and audacious for its time, he recalled, but "everything has caught up to it. The whole idea of everything being pure market forces [is] pretty much the way countries are run and certainly the armed forces."

A question was asked about the casting of Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate. Nichols recalled a Mad magazine parody in which Benjamin Braddock says to his mother, 'How come I'm Jewish and you and dad aren't?' I never said to myself, 'I need a Jew here.' But I needed an outsider. And then I thought of a guy that I saw in a play playing a tranvestite Russian..." Henry corrected Nichols by saying, "Actually a German tranvestite cripple. And [Hoffman] was totally convincing on all three things."

Nichols spoke about how he'd screen-tested Robert Redford for the Braddock role, but told him over a game of pool later on that he was wrong for the part. "You were wonderful [in the test], I said, but you can't play this part. 'Of course I can!' said Redford. No, you can't, I said. You could never play a loser in a million years. 'That's not true!,' he said. Then I asked him, 'Have you ever struck out with a woman?' and he said 'what do you mean?'"

Nichols was born to German-Russian-Jewish parents (his given name was Michael Igor Peschkowsky) in Berlin, Germany, in 1931. His family moved to the U.S. in 1939 to flee the Nazis. He began as a comic performer, and the thing that gives Jewish comics their edge, I've always felt or sensed, is that they have acute feelings of dread and angst, which of course provide the fuel. I would have liked to hear Nichols expound on this, and to what extent the Nazis shaped his art.

I happened to see Natalie Portman, whom Nichols directed in Closer, on the way out. She and Christine Aylward will be co-hosting a Tribeca Film Festival event at the Soho Apple store on 4.24 in which they'll discuss a new web project called 'Making Of' -- a site that promises to transform the way people view, enjoy, and participate in entertainment."

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Posted by Jeffrey Wells on April 19, 2009 at 5:42 AM

comment #1

MilkMan says ...

where's diablo cody?

Posted by MilkMan at April 19, 2009 8:28 AM

comment #2

Movie fan09 says ...

I happened to see Natalie Portman, whom Nichols directed in Closer , on the way out in the main lobby. She and Christine Aylward will be co-hosting a Tribeca Film Festival event at the Soho Apple store on 4.24 in which they'll discuss a new web project called 'Making Of' -- a site that promises to transform the way people view, enjoy, and participate in entertainment."

oh great.
more ways to destroy the magic of the movies.

Posted by Movie fan09 at April 19, 2009 8:49 AM

comment #3

BurmaShave says ...

That Redford story is amazing, never heard it before. Also in addition to their longtime affiliation Elaine May wrote THE BIRDCAGE and PRIMARY COLORS for him, seems worth mentioning in the lineup.

Posted by BurmaShave at April 19, 2009 9:36 AM

comment #4

byanyother says ...

Oh god, Milkman. Kill me now.

And this event is the single thing I've ever read that you've done, Wells, that I really wish I'd seen; these people are my gods. They don't make 'em like they usta. And part of that is that they don't last as long anymore. Maybe some will.

Posted by byanyother at April 19, 2009 10:05 AM

comment #5

CitizenKanedforChewingGum says ...

Good on Nichols for sticking by his guns and casting Hoffman in The Graduate. Sure, Redford could have played Ben Braddock, but of course he was all sorts of wrong for it.

Posted by CitizenKanedforChewingGum at April 19, 2009 10:09 AM

comment #6

TM says ...

From what I recall reading, Redford knew he was being considered but someone -- NIchols or somebody (maybe even Redford himself) explained why he shouldn't play the lead role ... Because he did not look like a guy who couldn't get laid.

Posted by TM at April 19, 2009 10:26 AM

comment #7

erniesouchak says ...

buck henry will forever be a god for "the graduate" and "what's up, doc?"

Posted by erniesouchak at April 19, 2009 10:51 AM

comment #8

Gaydos says ...

Jeffrey: is your take on the Nichols canon buried here somewhere (on the site)? Love to hear your view on the collected works. Yes, you hear a faint critical tone in that question.

Posted by Gaydos at April 19, 2009 11:32 AM

comment #9

Jeffrey Wells says ...

Wells to Gaydos: A couple of years ago I was moved to compare the camera-work in Four Months, Three Weeks and Two Days to Nichols' Phase One shooting style, particularly as he used it in Catch 22 and Carnal Knowledge. I'm basically a Phase One Nichols guy who's respectful of and in some cases very admiring of Phase Two, but Nichols was Icarus Ascending from '66 to '75.

http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2009/04/regarding_mike.php

"The exceptional, long-lasting artists, of course, are those with a knack for keeping themselves open to inspiration, or who at least know how to position or trick themselves into the right state of mind so that lightning comes their way more often than not. And the fact is that Nichols-the-director went through two creative lightning phases in his life -- the first from 1966 to '75, the second from '83 to the present. And there's no question that the Phase One, so to speak, was the more searing and profound of the two.

"The creative lightning of Phase One half-began with Nichols' direction of Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolff but it really kicked in with the enormous success of The Graduate ('67) -- easily his finest film -- and continued with the mixed successes of Catch 22 ('70), Carnal Knowledge ('71) and The Day of the Dolphin ('73). The end of Phase One was apparently caused or at least triggered by the crash-and-burn reception to The Fortune in 1975. Nichols disappeared for seven years after that.

"NIchols got a more subdued version of the 'lightning' back in his Phase Two career with Silkwood, Biloxi Blues, Heartburn, The Birdcage, Wolf , Regarding Henry, Postcards from the Edge, Working Girl, Primary Colors, Closer, Angels in America and Charlie Wilson's War.

"Glenn Kenny mentioned a profile piece by the New Yorker's John Lahr in which Nichols 'described the waning inspiration that struck him in the years after his steep ascent' and that 'he also reveals that in the '80s he struggled with a Halcion dependency that induced a breakdown.'

"But Kenny doesn't acknowledge the extreme unusualness of Nichols' career in that his Phase One brushstrokes -- his signature style as a filmmaker from The Graduate to The Fortune -- had totally disappeared when he returned to filmmaking in '83 with Silkwood. He had literally abandoned his visual signature of the '60s and early '70s and become an entirely different (one could say less distinctive and more accomodating) film artist."

ALSO:

http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2007/11/nichols_film_vs.php

Posted by Jeffrey Wells at April 19, 2009 1:44 PM

comment #10

nemo says ...

I'm old enough to remember Nichols and May doing their hilariously neurotic comedy routines on television back at the very beginning of the Kennedy administration. I was a very young kid, but even I could tell they were something unusual and terrific.

Mike Nichols's IMDB entry claims that he was interested in directing First Blood (1982) with Dustin Hoffman as John Rambo. I would have paid some serious, serious money to see that.

I only last week learned from the NYT profile that Nichols has worn a wig and artificial eyebrows since he was a kid (he lost all his hair to a reaction to a vaccine as a child). I never would have guessed. He should give some pointers to a lot a middle-aged male stars.

Posted by nemo at April 19, 2009 4:47 PM

comment #11

Sean says ...

Both those Graduate anecdotes (Hoffman as TV cripple and Redford striking out) are in Mark Harris' Pictures at a Revolution, which is wonderful.

Posted by Sean at April 20, 2009 7:51 AM

comment #12

Gaydos says ...

Jeff: Thanks for that. I guess I'm too much of an auteurist for my own good so I'll be nice and say Nichols started with great material, always had pretty terrific to solid performers/performances and leave it at that.

Buck Henry, however, is God. For "Get Smart" alone.

Posted by Gaydos at April 20, 2009 9:49 AM

comment #13

jamie malanowski says ...

To Burma Shave, who said ``That Redford story is amazing, never heard it before''--you would find that aneecdote recounted in Mark Harris's excellent ``Pictures at a Revolution,'' which is, in part, about the making of ``The Graduate.''

Posted by jamie malanowski at April 20, 2009 1:45 PM

comment #14

dd says ...

"The creative lightning of Phase One half-began with Nichols' direction of Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolff but it really kicked in with the enormous success of The Graduate ('67) -- easily his finest film -- and continued with the mixed successes of Catch 22 ('70), Carnal Knowledge ('71) and The Day of the Dolphin ('73). The end of Phase One was apparently caused or at least triggered by the crash-and-burn reception to The Fortune in 1975. Nichols disappeared for seven years after that.

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